Yeah, ok... I´m weak...

Good morning.

I quit WoW. I didn´t want to see it anymore. I needed something new. I play(ed) Aion. I got bored. I´m back...

Aion is a fun game at first. But (for now) it has about zero end-game-content. Sure you have some instances but the game revolves around PvP for the most part. From about level 45 (50 is max atm.) you can´t do much solo. There are about 5 or 6 quests per level. All you can do is some repeatable quests over and over again... which is more than just a bit boring.
Or you can do PvP. Which you can totally forget if you´re solo.
All that is left for me at level 47 is running instances with my guild mates. But that´s some undertaking...
You need a full group (6 players). We do have a good one and are quite successfull but instances in Aion can´t be compared to the ones in WoW. If you want to clear an instance you need time... a lot of time. Remember the old WoW days when it took you 4 to 5 hours to clear a raidinstance? Same in Aion... only with the GROUPinstances (no, I´m not kidding).

The ammount of trash mobs is insane. If you know the instance you can always skip some but there is still a lot you´ll have to kill. And if you finally made it to a boss and killed it you can´t even be sure to get some loot. The droprates for items are so low... If you´re really unlucky the boss won´t drop ANYTHING (again, no kidding).
Now imagine fighting through Black Wing Lair, killing Nefarian and getting... zip, zero, nada, nuttin´... welcome to Aion^^


I returned to WoW the day 3.3.0 went live. My freinds Cazicthule and Nesia started their own guild some time ago to have a bigger bank and to have all their chars together. When they told me that they had about 15 members now and that they were raiding 10-mans... I was hooked.

My priest and my mage joined the guild. Most time I play Impactus, my Frost-Mage. Over the last few days I forced him from 75 to 80 and ran an insane amount of instances (love the new Dungeonfinder!). Right now I´m doing heroics for badges.
With Arthak I cleared the 3 new instances in Icecrown, both normal and heroic. And yesterday I was asked to tag along for a raid.
We cleared the Trial of the Crusader (10 man normal) and killed Onyxia... and it was FUN!

So, yeah... I´m back in WoW. Of course I´ll also be blogging again but I don´t know how much time I can put into both.


Have a nice day ;).

Damn you Blizzard!

I´m enraged...

A few weeks ago I canceled my subscription of WoW and announced my "retierment" from the game (and this blog). I decided to leave it all behind because I didn´t "feel" it anymore. It was all said and done...

I was still playing every now and then. Fishing quests and stuff. Talking to Cazicthule and his brother, nothing fancy.

And then?!

What does Blizzard do? Cataclysm?! Are you kidding me? /angry fist shaking

What the hell? I quit... and you drop Cataclysm on me?! How... why... argh... You made me think... THINK...
You make me doubt my decision.
You make me wonder how it would be...

Damn you Blizzard! At least give me Dr. Drew´s number...

Final curtain

Good morning.

Today I have some sad news: I will leave WoW.

Over the last few weeks I had a lot of things going on in my RL. As a result I didn´t play WoW. Well... I logged in a few times and played around with my mage a bit but over all I stayed away from the game.
The thing is that right now (even with 3.2 waiting to happen) there is nothing that makes me want to play. Most things are "old and boring" and the only reason for me to come online are a few friends that I can talk to ingame.
I could try to find a new raid or guild but I don´t see a reason for that. WoW is a great game and can be a lot of fun. But I´ve been plying since the EU beta and right now I have the feeling that it was "too much". Plus all the (sometimes self-caused) drama I had to go through has taken it´s toll on me. I think it´s time for me to move on and find something new.

So I decided to quit WoW. My subscription will end in November but I don´t think I´ll be around that long. I found a game that sounds promising: Aion - Tower of Eternity. Although it´s from NCSoft (Lineage) and tecnically one of the games classified as "asia grinder" it´s not what you would expect. Leveling is mostly done via quests. Still you will have a hard time doing everything solo. Guilds have a much higher priority then in WoW. So I would say it fills the gap between Lineage and WoW. The game will start September 25th (20 if you pre-order) and this is where I´ll go. I allready found a promising guild and was able to beta-test two weeks ago (and again this weekend). It´s fun.

Of course, with quitting WoW, I´ll leave some friends behind. That was a hard decision for me. But to be honest they are/were the ONLY reason why I still played WoW. Leaving also means that this blog will come to an end.
I had a lot of fun doing this and would (again) like to thank everybody who supported me in any shape or form.

Whew... I guss that´s it. Game over...

Have a nice day ;).
Michael

Things you HAVE to do...

Good morning :).

We have a saying in Germany (I guess it´s known outside of my country too, but I´m not sure). "You have to build a house, plant a tree and father a child." I will add something to this: You have to be LIVE at a Twisted Nether Blogcast.
And while I´ve never done the house/tree/child thing... I was there at todays TNB! Yes! And I loved every second of it.

The "Round table" featured the likes of Fimlys and Nibuca (duh...) and their guests Patrick Beja from Frenchspin (among others), Larísa from The Pink Pigtail Inn, the one and only Big Bear Butt Blogger and the magnificent Breana ;).

They talked about Patch 3.2 in general and went into detail about some of the topics. And it was great fun to be there and witness it live. There were up to 47 people in the chat and I was one of them. Although I didn´t contribute to the discussion I enjoyed the whole thing very much. If you never took the time to listen to a blogcast from TNB... SHAME ON YOU!!! *g*

For about 2 1/2 hours it was a great experience to listen to all of them ramble about the various topics... and to read the chat. And the best thing is: it was UNRATED *g* I´m excited to hear how the "release" version of the 51st TNB sounds like.

For all you bloggers out there (and the non-bloggers too): Go to the Twisted Nether site and enjoy the blogcasts. You won´t be dissapointed!

Have a nice day ;).

Patch 3.2 is coming... what now?!

Good morning :).

It´s that time of the (WoW)year where everything is slowing down a bit. With patch 3.2 on the horizon a lot of guilds and (solo)players take a look at their current situation and make decisions about the future. Some want to clear Ulduar. Some want to relax a bit and start over when the new instances open their doors. Some think about quitting the game. Plus, there is this thing... what´s it called again? You know, the warm stuff outside your window... summer! Yeah, that´s it: summer :).

I didn´t really play WoW for the last two weeks. The main reason is that my raid has terminated itself. Most of the guys want to focus on their main chars and clear Ulduar 25. I understand that, our raid was more of a alt run for them. Last time we raided we had to bring in 5 randoms... needless to say that we didn´t do that good. So we agreed to suspend the raid. That´s sad. We were doing great. I believe we would have killed Yogg-Saron before 3.2.

After Arthak was "out of a job" I didn´t log in much. Mostly to check my mail... still praying for one of the raidleaders to revive the whole thing. Now I only check the fishing quest in Dalaran (for my shaman). The other thing I did is reroll a hunter. Some time back (before BC) I had a level 45 hunter but deleted him. That was back in the days when you had to tame a pet, learn it´s skill and train your "real" pet. Good ol´ days *g*. My new hunter is 26 now and quite fun to play.

I also took all my toons and started my own guild. It´s just me (and one of Cazicthule´s alts to invite mine). The guild is called "Torchwood" (my hunter´s pet is called "Dalek"... so, yeah... I´m a Doctor Who fan *g*). The main reason for that was that my bank space was coming to an end and since I didn´t want to join a "real" guild anyway, starting my own was the logical thing to do.

Right now I´d have to look for a new raid... again. For Ulduar (still need Yogg) and then for the new stuff. Or I could level some of my alts. But with 3 level 80 chars I don´t feel like doing it all over again. Well... I have 3 at 70+ but... meh. I think I´ll wait for the patch and then check out all the shiny new things that come along with it ;). If you´re from "Frostmourne" (Horde of course) and you raid needs a healer... I´m available!

To make a long story short: I´ll relax a bit and return for 3.2. The same will be true for the blog. Maybe there will be a few "What if...?" but until the patch goes live I´ll take a break from blogging as well. But don´t celebrate... I´ll be back *g*

Have a nice day ;).